Don't read this comment if you don't want spoilers for the film "Identity," (as well as for this film).
There's a narrative device that I like a lot. It may have originated in the play that this film is based on. I think there may be a half dozen other versions and a couple dozen derivative versions. Its the notion that all the characters you see are invented in one mind as a sort of lucid dream that we witness. In the usual embodiment, at the end this is revealed. Alas, here that bit is left off.
But in the basic version, a writer arranges to stay at a remote lodge, named "baldpate." He's alone and has the only key. His mission is to write a crime novel in 24 hours.
Right there you have three clues. The first is that the lodge's name is head-related. Obviously, what we will see will be the novel as it is being written. In one case, a character is literally told what his name will be. (This notion was used obliquely in "The Shining.")
As in "Identity" there's a business with keys. He has the only key to the place. But six other characters enter, and they have the only key as well!
At the time this was written, there was the notion in popular psychology that the human mind consisted of seven personalities that needed to be harmonized. Jung would later take this largely superstitious notion into more acceptable notions. But that's where Biggers got the idea (in his story) that Cohan dramatized. Cohan's version had the writer as a wisecracking observer, partly inside the mystery, partly outside.
This is a boring movie. But it and its predecessors are key milestones in narrative devices that dominate what we watch today.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
There's a narrative device that I like a lot. It may have originated in the play that this film is based on. I think there may be a half dozen other versions and a couple dozen derivative versions. Its the notion that all the characters you see are invented in one mind as a sort of lucid dream that we witness. In the usual embodiment, at the end this is revealed. Alas, here that bit is left off.
But in the basic version, a writer arranges to stay at a remote lodge, named "baldpate." He's alone and has the only key. His mission is to write a crime novel in 24 hours.
Right there you have three clues. The first is that the lodge's name is head-related. Obviously, what we will see will be the novel as it is being written. In one case, a character is literally told what his name will be. (This notion was used obliquely in "The Shining.")
As in "Identity" there's a business with keys. He has the only key to the place. But six other characters enter, and they have the only key as well!
At the time this was written, there was the notion in popular psychology that the human mind consisted of seven personalities that needed to be harmonized. Jung would later take this largely superstitious notion into more acceptable notions. But that's where Biggers got the idea (in his story) that Cohan dramatized. Cohan's version had the writer as a wisecracking observer, partly inside the mystery, partly outside.
This is a boring movie. But it and its predecessors are key milestones in narrative devices that dominate what we watch today.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.